Debt is part of the human condition. Civilization is based on exchanges - on gifts, trades, loans - and the revenges and insults that come when they are not paid back. Margaret Atwood
As soon as you have a language that has a past tense and a future tense you're going to say, 'Where did we come from, what happens next?' The ability to remember the past helps us plan the future. Margaret Atwood
Our generation in the west was lucky: we had readymade gateways. We had books, paper, teachers, schools and libraries. But many in the world lack these luxuries. How do you practice without such tryout venues? Margaret Atwood
I'm a strict, strict agnostic. It's very different from a casual, 'I don't know.' It's that you cannot present as knowledge something that is not knowledge. You can present it as faith, you can present it as belief, but you can't present it as fact. Margaret Atwood
You quickly find, when you are a hand-reader as I am, that nothing interests people so much as themselves. Margaret Atwood
There may not be one Truth - there may be several truths - but saying that is not to say that reality doesn't exist. Margaret Atwood
I didn't go to school for a full year until I was 12. In the summer I was a wild child in the woods, with no shoes, and in the fall it was back to the city, shoe shops and school. Margaret Atwood
Fiction is not necessarily about what you know, it's about how you feel. That is the truth about fiction, and the other truth is that all science is a tool, and we use our tools not to actualise what we know, but to implement how we feel. Margaret Atwood
Before the Civil War, Canada was at the top of the underground railroad. If you made it into Canada, you were safe unless someone came and hauled you back. That was also true during the Vietnam War for draft resisters. Margaret Atwood
A reader can never tell if it's a real thimble or an imaginary thimble, because by the time you're reading it, they're the same. It's a thimble. It's in the book. Margaret Atwood
If I pick up a book with spaceships on the cover, I want spaceships. If I see one with dragons, I want there to be dragons inside the book. Proper labeling. Ethical labeling. I don't want to open up my cornflakes and find that they're full of pebbles... You need to respect the reader enough not to call it something it isn't. Margaret Atwood
You're never going to kill storytelling, because it's built into the human plan. We come with it. Margaret Atwood
Writers and books are cheap dates, especially when you compare the cost of a book with a ticket to the opera - or an NHL game. Margaret Atwood
The problem with meditating is I generally go to sleep, and that's because I'm doing it wrong. Margaret Atwood
Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space. Margaret Atwood
Science is a tool, and we invent tools to do things we want. It's a question of how those tools are used by people. Margaret Atwood